Symposium

Response: After reading everyone's speeches displayed throughout the Symposium, I felt as if their styles were very unique to themselves and they openly displayed their opinions without hesitation. Although they are all discussing the unanimous topic of Eros, they discuss the matter with such different tones that display Eros in multiple personas. I found this striking because every single speaker viewed Eros in their own way, often shifting the mood of the dinner back and forth. Starting off…

Thesis statement Through the speeches by men, love is examined by men attending a symposium or a drinking party. The symposium has its main concerns with the beginning, the purpose and nature of affection and care. Therefore, love is the central theme in Plato’s dialogues in Symposium. Introduction The Symposium is a philosophical text written by Plato in approximately 386-370BC. It is a lively and entertaining book characterized by witty characterization which not only shares the concept of…

Plato’s Symposium is a dialogue of a party that was thrown to honor Agathon on the success of his first tragedy. In order to explain what was discussed at the party, Apollodorus uses information that he’s gained from various sources to explain the events of the party as well as to explain the many eulogies given by men to honor the God, Love. At the party, the men decide to drink until they do not feel like doing so anymore and they also decide to eulogize Love; these eulogies cover a wide…

Symposium by its very definition is a drinking party held after a banquet in ancient Greece. “The Symposium” by Plato is set place after a heavy day of drinking, where all the men are still recovering from their hangovers. They all decide to go easy for the night and just tell stories. Aristophanes and Socrates both tell stories about love, but both have very different meanings. Aristophanes, who is a comic playwright tells a story in which he talks about the myth of soulmates and love, and his…

loving men or women, and so on. In Plato’s Symposium, we learn about the uniqueness of love, the beauty inside and out, and the relationships between younger men and older men. Most importantly, we learn that Socrates is different. He doesn’t play by the rules of the ‘beauty ladder’. This essay will look at the lack of cookie-ness of Socrates through how other characters describe him as wise, a satyr, and a statue of Silenus. All characters in the Symposium would agree that Socrates is wise and…

Plato’s symposium is nothing less than a brilliant masterpiece, presenting us with a damning decision between the two views of love. If we choose the path Socrates has delineated, rising to the Good, we are unable to take the first step on the ladder as long as we reflect on Alcibiadies and Aristophanes. An individual can only fully follow Socrates if they are persuaded of his account to be true, but Alcibiadies and Aristophanes makes us think otherwise. Alcibiadies and Aristopahnes causes the…

The Symposium is a dialog by Plato that depicts a drinking party that Socrates attended where the subject of love and what it really is was discussed. All the people who attended took turns giving speeches of what they thought about love and what its meaning really is. The first one to speak was Phaedrus who is known as the beloved and his speech details how he thinks love instills in us a feeling of being virtuous and honorable. This in turn makes us happy and good men following the path of…

strong attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion to someone or something. Since the ancient Grecian times, the meaning of love has testified to these words. Ancient text such as Plato’s Symposium explain these ideas about love and prove these to humans that have been questioning love since the beginning of time. Plato’s Symposium is a compilation of speeches made at a party at the Greek poet, Agathon’s house (Raneiri 43). Although each speech brings something different to the conversation, each is…

Plato’s speeches in the Symposium surprised me, because at first it seemed that he was presenting multiple viewpoints on Eros, and leaving the reader to interpret the writings as they pleased. Besides Socrates’ dialogue with Agathon, he only offers witty banter, and a story he overheard from the mysterious Diotima. The Phaedrus also speaks about love, but it returns to the traditional question/answer method of dialogue that Plato and Socrates are so fond of. The two pieces, when read separately,…

The Republic and The Symposium In Plato’s writings, The Republic and The Symposium, he describes his theory of two worlds, through the examples of love. Plato uses Socrates in his dialogues to explain the difference between the world of the being and the world of becoming and the effect that the difference between the two worlds has on the search for knowledge. The symposium begins with several men discussing love. They all give speeches declaring what they think of love, then it is Socrates’…